Month: September 2012

Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Judgment, gave us a chance to reflect upon the past, and perhaps make some New Year’s resolutions for the future. So why do we celebrate Yom Kippur, the Day of Repentance, ten days later?

First and foremost, our Sages teach us that the Judgments made on Rosh Hashanah are not finalized until Yom Kippur. G-d is waiting, as it were, to see if we will give up our misdeeds and change course.

There is another idea, related to repentance itself. Sometimes the full measure of regret is only possible once we have improved our habits. Only after we have done better for a while can we look over our shoulders and say, “I should’ve done this a long time ago! Look what I missed because I didn’t!” So on Yom Kippur, having attempted to be on “our best behavior” for ten days, we express our regrets with a more complete understanding of the opportunities we missed along the way.

And there is yet another thought – that human nature being what it is, sometimes we make resolutions and find that all too soon we have failed to keep them. At that point a person can conclude that he or she can never improve, and give up hope.

The Chassidic Masters teach that that feeling of hopelessness is itself a terrible thing, to be avoided at all cost. The Evil Inclination’s ultimate goal, they say, isn’t merely that we sin, that we diverge from the path that G-d has set out for us. It is that we give up hope! Once there is no hope, not only will the past be repeated, but new misdeeds will be added as well.

Yom Kippur drives home the message that even the Day of Judgment isn’t final, that we always have the opportunity to truly put the past behind us. Yom Kippur gives us the power to go back and change the verdict. We are taught that the sanctity of the day itself absolves us from some minor transgressions; that is how powerful the day is, and that power is given to every one of us.

So what do we do with those resolutions which we made on Rosh Hashanah, only to break afterwards? We pick them back up, and try again. We do not give up hope, we don’t say that we simply can’t improve. On the contrary — we add new ones, we take the additional day to do an accounting and find paths to change ourselves for the better.

May we all be sealed into the Book of Life for a year of health, happiness and growth!

With the presidential race now so prominent in the collective American consciousness, the following story is especially apropos. In the Ohr Somayach Yeshiva in Jerusalem, there was an elderly native of the city who prayed with the Yeshiva each morning. On the morning following the presidential election in the United States, before prayers began, he went to one of the American boys and asked him who had won.

I don’t know if the young student knew the answer, but he was struck by the question. Why would an old man from Jerusalem care about the elections, so much so that he would go out of his way to ask about the results before prayers? Doesn’t G-d come first?

Asked for an explanation, the man replied that he was about to say a blessing thanking G-d for giving him the opportunity to be part of the Jewish People. Although everyone is created in the image of G-d and every righteous person has a share in the World to Come, to be called to serve G-d through all His Commandments is unique privilege. And when making that blessing, he wanted to think about the greatest and most powerful non-Jew in the world!

To give the story a bit of deeper insight, consider that this elderly gentleman lived in poverty in a small Jerusalem apartment. If I’m not mistaken, the protagonist used to sit in the back of the Bais Medrash (study hall), tying Tzitzis (fringes on the corners of garments) for a living while he reviewed the Babylonian Talmud by heart. He was quite poor, yet considered himself blessed beyond the most powerful man in the world.

Every one of us has our own individual set of challenges and opportunities placed before us. Our Sages tell us that we must say, “the entire world was created for me.” Whatever our situation, we have incredible blessings which we often take for granted. Most of us have legs to walk on, are able to breathe the air around us, and are able to marvel at a sunset. But even those who are not able to do all those things have many others for which to be thankful.

Rabbi Asher Z Rubenstein of Jerusalem offers another parable, related to the Commandment of Bikurim, bringing the first fruits to Jerusalem. After bringing Bikurim, we are told: “and you shall rejoice in all the good which HaShem your G-d has given to you and your house, you and the Levite and the stranger among you” [Deut 26:11].

Imagine a farmer who owns a few acres of land, works that land for a year, sees it produce enough food to feed his family, and happily packs a portion of his small crop to bring up to Jerusalem. But when he reaches the main road to Jerusalem, it is blocked by one carriage after another — each carriage laden with a different item, each offering as large as the farmer’s entire crop. And in the middle of it all sits one wealthy man in a gleaming carriage, the owner of all this bounty, produced off his land by hired help while he sat in the lap of luxury.

Suddenly, the farmer isn’t so happy anymore. Nothing has changed — except his heart. He feels inadequate, even jealous. That is the moment where the farmer must remind himself to “rejoice in all the good which HaShem your G-d has given to you and your house.”

Today, our world is filled with opportunities for us to feel that inadequacy. In the middle of an economy in which so many are unemployed or underemployed, we can now explore the lifestyles of billionaires as never before. There’s even a website for the “rich kids of instagram,” which features photos of wealthy young men and women (apparently taken from the Instagram photo-sharing site) enjoying their mansions, fancy cars and 12-course meals prepared by their private chef.

Your world was created for you, and no other. Hashem wants you to appreciate the blessings that you have, even among the challenges unique to your situation. That is the message of our reading. We should be thankful for what we have, and ask G-d to fulfill our needs — not those of our current or next president, nor those of a young man overwhelmed by wealth. We have something much more valuable, if we only recognize it — a world tailor-made just for us!